Debating the use of women in combat

WXIA -- The Pentagon's decision to lift the ban against women in combat will take the age-old battle of the sexes into the real-life theater of war.

"I will tell you that there are some men I would never want to serve in a foxhole with," said Goldie Taylor.

"And I'll tell you that there are some women on this planet that I would not want to be a in a foxhole without."

Taylor is a political commentator who served in the Marines.

"They don't put a gun in your hands unless they understand that you are prepared to follow through and do the job," she said emphatically.

"It's a bad idea whose time has not come," said John Douglas, offering the opposite side of the argument.

Douglas is a Newton County Commissioner and a retired Army officer. He's also a former state senator and chairman of the Veterans Military and Homeland Security Committee.

"It's an idea that came from people, who in spite of their protestations, have despised the military since Vietnam, who've used it as a left wing social laboratory the last four years and look to do that the next four years."

Douglas says there is no evidence that women serving in combat has ever been successful, even in the Israeli military.

"It impacted unit cohesion,"' he said. "It introduced a sexual tension into these units that have to literally live on top of each other for months."

He said if you don't believe the sexual tension part, just ask General David Petraeus. If the men at the top can't behave, he offers rhetorically, why would the young troops on the ground?

But Taylor believes the women can take care of themselves.

"No matter what their gender happens to be you want them fighting alongside you. And some of this has to do with physicality the rest has to do with heart."